The Agrarian Programme of Social-Democracy in the First Russian Revolution, 1905-1907

3. The Cadet Writers Obscure the Nature of the Struggle

Thedata given here on the role of the large landlord estates in the struggle
for land in Russia must be amplified in one respect; A characteristic feature of
the agrarian programmes of our bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie is the fact
that in them the question as towhichclass is the most powerful
opponent of the peasantry, andwhich holdingsform the bulk of the
expropriable lands are obscured by arguments about “norms”. They
(both the Cadets and the Trudoviks) talk mainly about how much land the
peasants need according to this or that “norm”, instead of dealing
with the more concrete and vital question: how much landis availablefor expropriation? The first way of presenting the question obscures the class
struggle, conceals theessenceof the matter by hollow pretensions to a “state” point of
view. The second places the chief emphasis on the class struggle, on the
class interests of a definite landowning stratum which largely represents
feudal tendencies.

Weshall revert to the question of “norms” elsewhere. Here
we want to mention one “happy” exception among the Trudoviks,
and one typical Cadet writer.

Inthe Second Duma, the Popular Socialist Delarov referred to the
percentage of landowners who would be affect ed by the alienation of land
(47th sitting, May 20, 1907). Delarov spoke ofalienation(compulsory), without raising the question of confiscation, and apparently
acceptedthe same normof alienation which I have taken
hypothetically in my table, namely, 500 dessiatins. Unfortunately, in the
stenographic records of the Second Duma this particular passage in
Delarov’s speech (p. 1217) is distorted, unless Mr. Delarov himself
made a mistake. The record says that compulsory alienation would affect 32
per cent of the private estates and 96 per cent of their total area of
land; the rest, 68 per cent of the landowners, it is claimed, have only 4
per cent of the private land. Actually, the figure should be not 32 per
cent, but 3.7 per cent, because 27,833 out of 752,881 landowners constitute
3.7 per cent, whereas the area of land affected—62,000,000 dessiatins
out of a total of 85,800,000 dessiatins—amounts to 72.3 per cent. It
is not clear whether this was a slip on Mr. Delarov’s part, or
whether he got hold of the wrong figures. At all events, of the numerous
speakers in the Duma, he, if we are not mistaken, was the only one whoapproachedthe real issue of the struggle in the most direct and
concrete way.

ACadet writer whose “works” one must mention when dealing
with this question is Mr. S. Prokopovich. True, he is, strictly speaking, a
member of theBez Zaglaviyagroup, who, like the majority of the
contributors to the bourgeois newspaperTovarishch, at one moment
poses as a Cadet and at another as a Menshevik Social-Democrat. Lie is a
typical representative of the handful of consistent Bernsteinians among the
Russian bourgeois intellectuals who waver between the Cadets and the
Social-Democrats, who (in most cases) join no party, and in the liberal
presspursue a line slightly to the right of Plekhanov. Mr. Prokopovich must be
mentioned here because he was one of the first to quote in the press figures
from the 1905 landed property statistics, and in so doing actually adopted theCadetposition on agrarian reform. In two articles which he wrote forTovarishch(No. 214 of March 13, 1907, and No. 238 of April 10, 1907),
Mr. Prokopovich argues against General Zolotaryov, the compiler of the official
statistics, who tries to prove that the government can tackle the land reform
quite easily without any compulsory alienation, and that 5 dessiatins per
household are quite sufficient for the peasant to conduct his husbandry!
Mr. Prokopovich ismore liberal:he puts the figureat8dessiatins per household. He repeatedly makes the reservation,
however, that this amount of land is “quite inadequate”, that this
is a “very modest” calculation, and so forth; nevertheless, he
accepts this figure in order to determine the “degree of the land
shortage” (the title of the first of Mr. Prokopovich’s articles
mentioned above). He explains that he takes this figure “to avoid
unnecessary disputes”—presumablywith the Zolotaryovs. Calculating
thus the number of “obviously land-poor” peasant households at one
half the total, Mr. Prokopovich correctly estimates that in order to bring the
peasants’ holdings up to 8 dessiatins, 18,600,000 dessiatins will be required,
and since the government’s total land reserve is alleged to be not more
than 9,000,000 dessiatins, “it will be impossible to avoid compulsory
alienation”.

Bothin his calculations and in his arguments, this Menshevik-minded Cadet, or
Cadet-minded Menshevik, admirably expresses the spirit and meaning of the
liberal agrarian programme. The questions of the semi-feudal latifundia, and
of latifundia in general, is quite glossed over. Mr. Prokopovich quoted the
figures only for private hold ings of more than 50 dessiatins.

Thus, the actual issue of this struggle is obscured. The class interests of
a handful, literally a handful, of landlords are concealed behind a veil.

Instead of an exposure of those interests, we are given the “state
point of view”: the state lands “will not
suffice”. Hence, if they did suffice, Mr. Prokopovich, to judge
from his argument, would be quite willing to leave the feudal latifundia
intact....

Thepeasant’s allotment scale that he takes (8 dessiatins) is a
starvation scale. The amount of land to be “compulsorily
alienated” from the landlords that he allows for is insignificant
(18—9=9 million dessiatins out of 62,000,000 in estates of over 500
dessiatins!). To carry outthat kindof “compulsory
alienation”, thelandlordswill have to use compulsion on
the peasants, as in 1861!

Whetherhe meant to or not, wittingly or unwittingly, Mr. Prokopovich
hascorrectlyexpressed thelandlordnature of the Cadet
agrarian programme. But the Cadets are cautious and sly: they preferto
say nothing at allabouthow muchland they are inclined to
expropriate from the land lords.